Siblings Violet, Vale, and Dodie think they’ve left their strange childhood in Fell, New York, behind: their largely absent parents, their friendless existence in a neighborhood without other children, and the mysterious disappearance of their little brother Ben. They aren’t happy, exactly, in their scattered lives, but they’ve escaped the dark gravity of Fell. At least until Violet gets a call from the landscapers who have been tasked with maintaining their empty childhood home, and she starts to receive messages from beyond the grave …
A Box Full of Darkness is one of St. James’ contemporary novels that’s not quite horror, and not quite Gothic, but definitely has traces of both genres in its DNA. It shares a setting with The Sun Down Motel, and contains a few references to The Broken Girls. As with all of St. James’ books, this one delivers interesting characters with distinctive voices, plenty of things that go bump in the night, and a good spooky atmosphere.
I was a little disappointed at some of the threads that were left dangling, and at the abruptness of the conclusion. The mystery at the book’s heart is “solved,” but it’s certainly not explained; if anything, it ends with more questions than it started with. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though; as a reader of Gothic horror and romance, I’m okay with things remaining in the shadows. (And since Fell appears to be the new residence of St. James, I’m confident that a few of the unanswered questions raised by “A Box Full of Darkness” are going to be prompt some future stories that are just as spooky.)
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